High Intensity Interval Training
HIIT.
Heard of it?
Dr Michael Mosley brought it to everyone's attention in his documentary "The Truth About Exercise", whereby he performed 20 seconds of full throttle cycling on a stationary bike, followed by a couple of minutes of gentle peddling to regain his breath, then repeated that sequence twice more.
The magic of this style of workout lies in (the likelihood) that HIIT uses far more of our muscle tissue than classic aerobic exercise.
When you do HIIT, you are using not just the leg muscles, but also the upper body including arms and shoulders, so that 80% of the body's muscle cells are activated, compared to 20-40% for walking or moderate intensity jogging or cycling.
Active exercise also seems to be needed to break down the body's stores of glucose, deposited in your muscles as a substance called glycogen. Smash up these glycogen stores and you create room for more glucose to be sucked out of the blood and stored. (1)
My husband is chronically busy and has neither the time nor inclination for long bike rides, bouncy Basic Training sessions nor back-breaking weights workouts. HIIT is the perfect antidote: exercise that is over in 20-30 minutes, improves your cardiovascular fitness, increases your insulin sensitivity - which is particularly good if you have a genetic predisposition to diabetes and best of all, burns more fat.
I recommend going to the following link in order to know how to start out. (2) Essentially you will start out slow, and will therefore not get the aerobic, insulin and fat-burning benefits as quickly as you'd like. But stick with it! Push yourself to do a few more reps every workout.
So, for the absolute beginner through to the experienced athlete, check out this website to get some workout ideas: www.buzzfeed.com/sallytamarkin/get-fit-bodyweight-exercises. Just do what you can in the given timeframe. For the beginner; move steadily through the exercises, taking the easier options initially e.g. push ups on your knees rather than your toes; regular lunges rather than lunge jumps, plank on your knees.
By the way, remember my previous post about the pelvic floor? Don't do jump squats, lunge jumps or deep squats if you are in the process of strengthening your pelvic floor. I also recommend taking five minutes pre-workout to go for a gentle jog and do some dynamic stretches - that is, moving through a range of stretches. Sun salutation is an excellent dynamic warm up. You may want to add five minutes at the end of the workout to do some static (holding) stretches too.
When you've done your HIIT workout, post your achievements to us. Try to do at least three of these workouts a week. That's just 90 minutes of your time each week.
I'm telling you, it's the secret to getting in shape quick smart.
Remember: Keep Encouraging Yourself...Or contact me and I'll do it for you!
(1) http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251
(2) https://www.fast-exercises.com/michael-answers-frequently-asked-questions/
